


Reprieve

by Gearsmoke



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Fluff, M/M, major moments of NOT METAL., scary stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6403729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gearsmoke/pseuds/Gearsmoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't read if you're weak to feels-torture. <br/>Written when I was in a funky mood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reprieve

Reprieve

He was still in shock, his head a hazy jumble. Everything that had happened seemed distant and blurry, yet it came into sharp focus around a single moment. Chill. Waking up. Time standing still. Nathan knew something was wrong as soon as his eyes opened. That had been hours ago.

There was something in his bed, something cold and dead and still where his best friend had been the night before. The body seemed so small, frail and old… when had Pickles gotten so old? He’d never showed his age in life, under the crows’ feet and laugh lines there was just so much youth in him. Gone now. Like his hair, the fiery dreadlocks now absent, his beard turned completely white, his soft childish freckles traded for liver spots and scars. That cheeky smile, gone, with the warmth, the life that had made this small bundle of flesh and bones into a human being. 

Looking down at himself, Nathan noticed how he’d aged as well. His fifties were being pretty good to a man who’d abused his body the way he had. It was a little softer now, he’d lost weight but the muscle had faded under the fat. Raven hair draped down to his belly with a few streaks of silver, but he still felt healthy, strong… at least he did. He had been. Sitting in that room, watching people come and go -professionals dealing with what he could not - he didn’t know if he’d ever feel that way again.

They took the body away.

Twenty years had gone by since they’d first kissed, a year less since the once-metal-god-drummer had turned to Nathan and told him his future. God, it felt like yesterday. Like those years had simply melted away into tiny bright points strung between then and now. They had been lying together, talking, like they often did. This was just at the turning point of their relationship, when they were really looking at each other and seeing their lives together. They could call it Metal, they were daring the world, challenging social norms, doing, _being_ what they wanted without fear of reprimand. Whatever it took to let them find each other in the dark.

Pickles had turned to Nathan then, "Nate? I need ta tah’k ta ya aboht sommin’." His tone had a serious edge.

Nathan opened his eyes, "Yeah?" 

The drummer’s small, strong hand found the singer’s larger one and clasped around it. "Y’know… Ah’m older n’ ya, reet?" He paused, but continued before Nathan could respond, "I don’t jest mean in years. Ah’ve burned down a lahtta my life gittin’ high."

"Okay… so… yeah you’re older than me, but uh, I don’t care." He could say it, but Nathan felt a knot forming in his gut even then.

Pickles just sighed, "I don’t wanna hurt ya, Nate… but I have ta be hanest. I went ta th’ dahckter… I mean ah’ve alweys kinda known, but ah’ve been dodgin’ bullets."

Sitting up, Nathan was instantly at full alert, "What? Is something wrong? Are you sick?"

The redhead put his hand on Nathan’s arm, trying to soothe him, "No. I mean, yeh… but it’s naht like a disease, it’s more like… wear n’ tear. My insides are a laht older n’ dey should be cos I ain’t taken good care ahv em. An’ it’s kinda… too late ta reely do ennyt’in aboht it."

"So… so what does that mean? Why…?" The burly frontman looked lost, eyes wide in worry.

"It means I prah’lly won’t git ta grow old wit’cha. I want ta, but unless I turn out ta be Keith Richards, I ain’t gahnna."

"How long…?"

Pickles smiled, "Years… ten, mebby fifteen? Lissen… I unnerstand if ya don’t wanna deal wit’ deat. I don’t wanna deal wit’ it, but at least it’ll be over fer me when it happens."

Shaking his head, Nathan just pulled his lover close, "No, I can handle it. I’m not going anywhere."

And it had been good for a while… wonderful, in fact. Though he knew it, Nathan couldn’t remember anything clearly. The memories were drowning in sorrow, leaving only the feeling, the sense of deep happiness that had been torn away from him. And then something else surfaced… and Nathan recalled in perfect clarity.

It had been bad. Worse than any of their previous concerts; and that was saying a lot. Five square miles of central St. Louis had been utterly destroyed, the damage centered around Busch Stadium, where the band had been scheduled to play. The five musicians had just taken the stage when ground started to shake. Deep fissures opened up throughout the city, destroying buildings and issuing forth smoke and fire, Thousands of lives were lost to a disaster Dethklok had caused simply by existing… But it would have been quite a lot worse if it hadn’t been for the musician’s innate serendipitous ineptitude. 

By some stroke of fate, Nathan tripped over a cable that had been improperly fastened, the singer’s bulk yanking an amplifier over. The amplifier toppled a ten foot floor speaker, which might have crushed Toki, if the Norwegian hadn’t been quick enough to go diving into Pickles’ drum kit. The speaker thumped down with a squeal of feedback, making the string players’ instruments burn out, knocking Skwisgaar down and burning Murderface’s hands. Behind the fallen equipment, Pickles and Toki barely managed to get away before the wiring came down on the metal frame of the drum kit and shorted out the stage lights, causing sparks and broken glass to come raining down on all of them. Honestly, that would have been really cool, if the sparks hadn’t set fire to the plastic cables on a large overhead fan, melting its casing. The fan started to smoke and shake, the casing came apart, and the blades swung down at the end of the fan’s power cable: foot-long whirling steel wings of death… Which fortuitously managed to lop the head off of the robed and bearded old man who was chanting behind the stage. Without him there to keep the spell going, the earth settled, fiery rifts sealed back up, and the sky cleared. For miles around them, the only structure left relatively undamaged was the stage on which Dethklok stood.

They never truly understood the nature, the magnitude of what had happened under their feet, only their manager and the group of illuminati who had planned it would ever know. And of them, only Charles Offdensen walked the earth with that knowledge, for the cabal of sinister figures who had tried to engineer the end of the world had been dragged down to Hell in their failure. With that, Dethklok and the rest of the world were granted reprieve.

After that, Dethklok decided it was time to retire. They gradually faded out of the spotlight, stepping back in the dignified manner of an aging band with class. They’d still put out an album here or there, but mostly they were content to just relax and give up the façade of Metal. 

And now Charles came to Nathan, looking like he always had. Vanity led the manager to dye away the grey in his hair, and one had to look closely to see the lines in his face, most would find it hard to believe this was someone who’d seen seventy come and go. And it was he who was strong enough to shoulder Nathan, take him away from the bedroom that smelled like death. They left Mordhaus, left the country, took a suite in a hotel under a false name, paid extra for discretion. Charles knew they needed a place where the singer could recover, away from the press and the things that were still so full of the drummer’s soul.

Time passed, the sky became dark again. Charles sat with his friend, a man who’d been his client first, then an adopted son, and then a man who he could truly respect. He sat in silence, they sat in silence. There were no words. The manager had loved Pickles, he loved them all, Nathan knew that, though it was never said. 

"The sun is setting," Nathan said. "Didn’t it just rise?"

"Yes. The days are disappearing now, there’s only sunrises and sunsets." Maybe it was a metaphor, but it was odd.

"Years are doing that, too." The larger man observed. "I was young yesterday."

"So was I."

Nathan nods, "I remember." He pauses, then quietly, "Will you stay here and watch me sleep? I’m afraid I won’t wake up."

"Yes."

They lay down together, the only human beings left in the world. Comforted by the sound of breathing, Nathan drifted down, away from pain, from loss.

He stood in a meadow, naked. The sun was almost achingly bright. He felt a hand slip into his own, and looked into the face of his best friend. Pickles looked like he had the first time Nathan had laid eyes on him. Not when they’d met, but six years earlier. When the drummer had been a singer, wildcat fierce and whip quick, a fiery waif in a neon jungle. Nathan had been fourteen, watching this wonder on the grainy screen of his parents’ television. This was he first time he had ever thought another man was beautiful.

He said so, they kissed.

Nathan woke up. The room was dark, but he could see that it wasn’t the hotel suite. Where was he? Oh… wait, he knew. This was his room… his bed. Was Charles there? He felt the warmth of someone sleeping next to him. Reaching away from the bed, Nathan hit the button to turn the lights up. He saw, and the fog lifted.

Last night, Pickles had told him they might not grow old together. Had explained how his fast life had made him aged before his time, and that one day it’d catch up to him. There was no knowing when, or how… and all he could do was keep tabs on his health and try not to make it too much worse if he could help it.

The small, beautiful man snored softly, deep in dreams, bright snakes of red hair splayed over the pillow, and Nathan leant down to kiss his drummer’s bare shoulder. He had no way of knowing if he’d really seen their future, if the truth would be any better or worse than what he’d been shown. But Nathan knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

  



End file.
